Cloth finishing



March 13, 1934. s QLUETT 1,950,398

CLOTH FINISHING Filed March 3, 1933 3 Sheets-Sheet l March 13, 1934. s. L. CLUETT CLOTH FINISHING Filed March 3, 1933 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 an 07' p M jnve 7&207

rzzis Worvzeya March 13, 1934.

fivezzz'af 6a arcZZ 6220232,

Patented Mar. 13, 1934 PATENT OFFICE CLOTH FINISHING Sanford L. Cluett, Troy, N. Y., assignor to Cluett, Peabody & 00., Inc., Troy, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application March 3, 1933, Serial No. 659,485

2 Claims. (01. 26-57) This invention relates to mechanism for shrinking cloth and more particularly to a tentering or like machine of the kind in which cloth is stretched in width while in a state of longitudinal B relaxation, an example of such machine being that illustrated in United States Patent No. 1,734,897 and German Patent No. 556,392.

The prior machine of said patents includes a suitable elevated guide member adapted to cause the cloth to approach the traveling pins of the, tenter at an angle with respect to their horizontal plane of travel, in combination with a novel form of impaling device in which the first or primary brush presses on the cloth at the initial point of contact of the cloth with the traveling pins. Thecloth being impaled is part way down on one pin succeeding pin. Thus, the length of the cloth between two successive pins is represented by 2 approximately the hypotenuse of a right triangle of which the base is the distance of between the two successive pin points. Upon passage under the primary impaling brush, the difference between the hypotenuse and the base of said right 28 triangle then appears as lengthwise slack available to permit superficial lengthwise contraction of the impaled cloth asthe consequence of widthwise stretching.

Thus a characteristic of the machine of said 30 patents is that the cloth is initially impaled in a lengthwise uncreased or unwrinkled state while under longitudinal tension, and that a longitudinal slackness is later afiorded by a subsequent shortening of the linear distance between points of engagement of the cloth with successive pins,

more specifically by a shortening of such distance from the length of the hypotenuse to the length of the base of the same right triangle. Designating the angle between said hypotenuse leand said base as a, the impaling angle, it will at once appear that the lengthwise slack finally attained will be a function of said angle and that the greater the impaling angle the greater the amount of lengthwise slack obtained. With a is machine constructed as described above it is practicable for a given length of the tenter chain to have evenly distributed thereon from 0% to approximately 10% excess of cloth, depending on the value of the impaling angle a.

so If the cloth is allowed to run freely to the pins which are constantly advancing it, the primary impaling brush is free to drop to a position where in the impaling angle aattains its maximum value, permitting the pins to draw in to the tentering machine, for example, a 10% excess of cloth. On

the other hand, holding back on the cloth approaching the pins raises the primary impaling brush, decreases the impaling angle or, and diminishes the amount of cloth drawn into the machine so by the pins. For the purpose of holding back on the cloth to an appropriate degree to provide the requisite level for the primary impaling brush,

the requisite angle of impaling, and a predetermined degree of slackness after impaling, the

the uniform impaling of the cloth necessitates the absence of any slack, and the existence of some degree of-tension in this portion of the cloth. The present invention provides an arrangement of these retarding rollers such that in preparing a machine for starting, the operator can thread the cloth through these rollers and onto the pins without regard to the possible temporary creation of slack in the cloth, andcan then merely rotate .these retarding rollers backward to provide adequate tension in the cloth before beginning operation of the machine.

In the accompanying drawings:

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of the entering end of a cloth shrinking tentering machine according to this invention;

Fig. 2 is a vertical partial section on the line 22 of Fig. 1 with certain parts broken away;

Fig. 3 is a vertical section on the line 3-3 of Fig. 2; I

Figs. 4 and 4 are diagrammatic views, to a larger scale, showing the manner in which the tensioned cloth is impaled on the tenter pins and subsequently caused to lie slack thereon.

Referring to Fig. 1, the tentering machine, the frame of which is indicated at 11, includes the usual spaced and diverging runs of traveling webedge holding devices such as the usual chaindriven tenter pins, of,which one run is indicated at 12. As customary, the two runs of pin chains are preferably driven by suitable driving connections from a source of power such as an electric motor.

The web of cloth w which may have previously passed through any suitable device for straightening and smoothing it, enters the illustrated device by passing around rolls '70 and '71 and from thence runs at an inclination to the primary impaling brushes of which one is indicated at 80.. The impaling brush 80 is freely rotatable, to turn with the passing cloth, and is supported in a floating manner by the cloth w, for example by having its axle mounted on a lever 82 pivotally mounted at 83 on'a bracket 84 fixed to the frame of theme.- chine. A spring 85 pulls on the lever 82 so as to press the brush firmly against the cloth which in turn is impaled on the pins. The spring 85 is preferably adjustable so that heavier pressure may be obtained for correspondingly heavier fab-- rics. A secondary impaling brush 86 rotating the cloth firmly down near or to the base of the pins. The axle 87 of the brush 86 is fastened firmly to the bracket 84, but may be moved to or from the pins so that the brush may push the cloth down to the proper distance. The cloth is drawn into the pins by the force resulting from the horizontal pull of the last pin. on which the cloth is impaled, in conjunction with the radial pressure of the brush 80.

Fig. 4 shows the primary impaling brush in its lowest position, and illustrates how with this position of the brush the cloth would be impaled by the pins at a large angle a with respect to the horizontal, with resulting large excess of cloth between adjacent pins.

Fig. 4 showing the impaling brush sustained by the tension in the cloth in a somewhat more elevated position, illustrates the resulting smaller impaling angle a that is obtained by holding back or retarding the cloth 20 before the latter comes in contact with the pins. Obviously if the cloth w is held back under suflicient appropriate tension, the impaling brush 80 will be raised still higher until its periphery is tangent to the horizontal plane of the points of the pins, at which time the angle a will be zero, the hypotenuse of the angle a will be equal to its base, and the cloth will therefore be impaled merely on the points of the pins and drawn in to the pins at a rate exactly equal to the forward travel of the pins.

In order to hold back on the cloth, so as to obtain higher positions of the impaling brush than that shown in Fig. 4, and correspondingly smaller impaling angles, the retarding rollers '70 and 71 are provided. However, instead of connecting these rollers to the tentering machine in the manner shown in said patents, the present invention provides connections which permit the rolls 70 and '71 to be turned backward when necessary or desirable. Thus the connections from the tentering machine to these rollers '70 and '71 prevent these rollers from turning as fast as the cloth would otherwise turn them, but do not prevent these rollers from turning at a slower rate or from remaining stationary or from being turned backward, even though the tenter pins are in motion.

As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, each roller '70 and '71 is mounted to' rotate freely on ball bearings 40 carried by cross-shafts 43 and 44. A pawl or series of pawls 45 and 46 provided on the end faces of the rolls '70 and 71 respectively are adapted to engage ratchet wheels 4'7 and 48 which are keyed onto the respective cross-shafts 43 and 44. Any suitable light springs 45 and 46 may be employed to urge the pawls 45 and 46 toward their respective ratchet wheels. As shown in Fig. 3, the arrangement of the ratchets is such that the roller '70 and '71 can not be turned by the cloth at a faster rate than is permitted by the cross-shafts 43 and 44 but can turn at a slower rate, (the ratchet wheels running freely ahead of the pawls), or can be turned backward.

The cross-shafts 43 and 44 are connected by any. desirable gearing or through electric or other control to run in synchronism with the tenter chains, for example, by connections extending to the drive motor of the tenter.- Preferably provision is made for varying the speed ratio between the travel of the tenter pins and the rate of rotation of these shifts 43 and 44. In the illustrated form of the device, shafts 43 and 1,950,898 freely on its axle is preferably provided to press 44 are connected by bevel gearing 49, 50, 51, 52 to a vertical shaft 53, which in turn is connected by gears 54, 55, shaft 56, and gears 5'7, 58 to a change speed gear device indicated at '59, preferably constructed and arranged as shown in the United States patenf'dpplication of Sanford L. Cluett, Serial No. 628,852, filed August 15, 1932, and including a small longitudinally movable idler gear '73 adapted to be engaged with any one of a plurality of gears '74 of varying diameters. A handle '75 is adapted to hold the idler gear '73 in engagement with the appropriate larger gear '74 to provide the appropriate speed of the crossshafts 43 and 44 relative to the travel of the tenter pins. The change speed gear device 59 is in turn connected by gears '78, '79, (Fig. 2) to a shaft 80' connected to the drive motor for the tenter. Thus the rotation of the two rolls '70 and '71 maybe limited to any predetermined and desired rate of speed with respect to the tenter pins, and the tenter pins thereby prevented from drawing cloth onto the machine at any faster rate than that selected. A suitable scale '76 (Fig. 1) may be employed to indicate the amount of excess cloth which is permitted to be drawn into the machine.

The advantage of the ratchet and pawl connection between the rolls '70, 71 and the shafts 43, 44 will now be readily apparent. In preparing the machine for operation, the operator can initially start the machine, whereupon the tenter pins, gearing and cross-shafts 43, 44 will begin to move. The rolls '70, '71, however, will remain stationary as the ratchet wheels 4'7, 48 can move freely past the associated pawls. The operator can then pass the cloth web w around and between the rolls '70, '71, which can be rotated manually at any desired speed not in excess of the speeds of shafts 43, 44. After drawing the cloth through these rolls, the operator can then stop 5 the machine, and impale a short length of the cloth on the pins by hand. Thereupon, to provide the desired tension in the cloth in advance of the impaling brush, the operator can turn the rolls 70, 71 backward the requisite amount. The 120 machine is then ready for continued operation.

I claim: s

l. A tentering machine for cloth-shrinking having means for impaling the entering cloth on traveling tenter pins and subsequently cau i 125 the points of impalement to lie closer together so as to provide lengthwise slack in the impaled cloth, and having cooperating rollers adapted to retard the entering unimpaled cloth so as to limit the amount of cloth drawn onto the machine by 130 impaling operation, characterized in that a ratchet device prevents the rollers from being turned by the cloth faster than a predetermined rate with relation to the travel of the tentering pins but permits the rollers to be turned backward to facilitate applying the proper tension to the entering fabric.

2. A tentering machine comprising traveling web-edge holding devices, a moving part running in synchronism therewith, rotary cloth-retarding means engaging the traveling cloth prior to engagement by said traveling web-edge holding devices, and a ratchet connection between said cloth-retarding means and said moving part limiting the speed of said rotary cloth-retarding L means in a forward direction but permitting said rotary means to be turned backward.

SANFORD L. CLUETT. 

